


When the Wolf Comes Home

by nimblermortal



Series: Harry Potter/Mountain Goats Songfic [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Mountain Goats (Band)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Betrayal, Domestic espionage, F/M, Fidelius Charms, Foie gras, Gen, Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, Revenge, the Neighborhood Watch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: A Harry Potter fic, written expressly for the Mountain Goats song “Up the Wolves”-----Four verses; four vignettes, exploring the Fidelius Charm, Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, domestic espionage, and foie gras.
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley/Vernon Dursley
Series: Harry Potter/Mountain Goats Songfic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1339567
Kudos: 4





	When the Wolf Comes Home

_ There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet _

_ No matter where you live _

_ There'll always be a few things, maybe several things _

_ That you're going to find really difficult to forgive. _

The trouble with being a pet rat to the Weasleys, Peter reflected, was that they were a load of duffers. Not stupid, not terrible, just… _mediocre_. They didn’t have the glint of brilliance that Voldemort, or Sirius, or… James had had. And every so often one of them managed to muff it badly enough that he got sorted into Hufflepuff.

It made them a perfect hiding place, really - no one looked too closely at a Weasley. Their hair was the brightest thing about them. But Peter had gotten used to dreamily remembering his halcyon days at Hogwarts, when he was one of the coolest boys at school, and that would be a lot harder to do from the puling Hufflepuff common room.

So he sulked in Ron’s pocket as the prefects guided them toward the kitchen, and tried to ignore the endless tic of habit that surprised him whenever one of his Weasley masters walked past the entrance to the kitchens. The Herbology teacher these days was called Sprout, and Peter hadn’t been paying attention enough before to notice she was the Head of Hufflepuff, but he supposed now he would know this sort of thing.

“Good evening and welcome, first years,” she was telling them. “I am Professor Sprout, and I am so excited to share with you your first symbol of what makes Hufflepuff unique. This is the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room.”

And Peter sat bolt upright in Ron’s pocket, peeking out the front, where he saw a piece of wall that even the Marauders had never thought was anything more than wall widen soundlessly into a homey wooden door.

There was some murmuring among the Muggle-born first years, of which, of course, Helga Bleeding Heart Hufflepuff sheltered the majority; but Peter had no patience for their questions. Pomona Sprout had not just cast wandless, silent magic; no, this was a pre-existing charm. This was the _Fidelius_ charm.

Peter was going to be spending the next seven years walking, at least twice a day, through a reminder of what he had done to James.

_There's gonna come a day when you feel better_

_You'll rise up free and easy on that day_

_And float from branch to branch_

_Lighter than the air_

_Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?_

They’d been reading about the Reformation in school, the teacher hinting about A-level history. That was why, when Harry went to the library to escape Dudley’s cronies (now Dudley was at school again in Scotland, and Harry alone and helpless back in Little Whinging), he found himself in the 200s, thumbing along the spines of theology books he knew those thugs would never look near. If they even came in.

That was why he found himself picking up Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses - that and that it looked small enough to hide under Dudley’s hand-me-down shirts and not be noticed. The librarian gave him a second look when he checked it out, but he mumbled something about a project for school and got the checkout card stamped.

And that was why he was here, hammer in hand, paper in the other, at the door of Number Four, Privet Drive before dawn, shivering in the dew. He’d only get one chance at this before Uncle Vernon stirred in his sleep and asked what that tapping was; but Aunt Petunia had had him fixing the fence every day after school for the last month, and he knew how to wield a hammer.

The paper was going to get wet in the dew, but that was all right. It was numbered one to ninety-five, and he’d tried to get the tone right, that helpless sadness more than anger, even if he didn’t have any indulgences to rail against. Martin Luther had looked at his world and its injustices, and he hadn’t meant to break the church, he just wanted to stop hurting people. So Harry had looked at his life and asked it to do the same.

  1. _When your sister leaves a baby on your doorstep, she doesn’t mean for you to keep it in the cupboard_.



There was a moment, now, where he could still go back inside and pretend he’d never meant to do anything; still time to shred these pages and make the Dursleys breakfast. But he wasn’t going to do that anymore.

He raised the hammer, struck the tack three times, and set the hammer down on the doorstep. And then he turned and walked away. He was going to London; there had to be work in London, even for a fourteen-year-old.

His shoulders were thin with youth and trembling with anger and fear; the world was wide and dark; but he’d set his feet on the path. Now all he had to do was walk.

He’d figure out the rest as it came up.

_We're going to commandeer the local airwaves_

_To tell the neighbors what's been going on_

_And they will shake their heads, and wag their bony fingers_

_In all the wrong directions_

_And by daybreak we'll be gone_

The house was not everything Vernon had promised.

Oh, it had what he had promised: Three bedrooms ( _One for us, one for visitors, one for a child? maybe?_ ). A clear, open kitchen for Petunia. A garden, even, just as promised.

But the _neighbors_. The first questions were innocuous- what are you going to do with the garden; what is it like inside? The first comments even passed - oh, _geraniums_ ; _three_ bedrooms?

And then, for a Saturday special, she dared to have breakfast in the garden, laid out in flowers; and suddenly, no fewer than five neighbors were talking about how terribly unhealthy egg yolks were, how brave it was for Vernon to eat bacon, and a comment on the outdatedness of daisies that it took Petunia most of a week to realize was addressing her tablecloth.

So they ate indoors, after that.

And then Vernon came home with another carload of their things, containing Petunia’s cello this time, and she kissed him, and she had things to do with her days besides unpacking; so she played cello. Her magic, not Lily’s, rich and sweet and galant.

And the neighbors complained of the noise, and sent her an actual cease and desist letter.

And all right, the walls of the houses were a bit thin, and Petunia couldn’t find her mute, but Vernon was still new in his job, the newly-made Durselys new in their new-bought house they had barely started paying for, and the thought of legislation made both of them sick with terror.

Tuney packed away her cello, and she thought, _These people must never find out about Lily._

It wasn’t just about the world Lily had that Tuney, Petunia never would, or about what Vernon thought, or about that trust-fund man-child taking advantage of Lily, of Lily’s open-heartedness and optimism, that boy who would never work, not like some - no, now it could be about protecting Lily.

And so, _No owls._

And when the neighbors commented on the pictures arranged in her living room over the fireplace, _No Floo._

And the first time she fought with Vernon, and saw them whispering about it afterward - well, Petunia discarded the potted plants that needed sunlight, and drew her blinds, and packed herself away like a cello. But she had never been as generous of thought as Lily, and so she whispered to Vernon afterward, “I’m going to get them back. I’m going to get them _first_.”

And Vernon looked at her with admiration, and said, “I believe you.”

“No one is stronger than my wife.”

“You’re going to win.”

Oh, they would have anything to talk about but Lily; and in the arms race of the neighborhood inquisition, no one was ever going to beat Petunia Evans Dursley.

_I'm going to get myself in fighting trim_

_Scope out every angle of unfair advantage_

_I'm going to bribe the officials_

_I'm going to kill all the judges_

_It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage_

It was a gorgeous honey day and the light gave life to the stones of Hogwarts. Gargoyles basked; oak trees flexed their leaves and considered giving way to the darker greens of summer; thistles had taken over from the bluebells of spring.

And Voldemort stalked out of the front doors of the castle. They slammed behind him, and one corner began to smoke. He had been rebuffed for the last time, and the injustice of it ate at his half soul.

Rejected! Rejected at every turn! From the moment he arrived at this place it had been so, from the moment of his birth. From the first night he arrived at Hogwarts, head crooked up to stare at the towers, jaw dropped, feet slurring until that very front door had oscillated to close in his face behind all the other first years - always it had been rejection.

And always he had triumphed, he reminded himself. They had sought to push him out, but he had succeeded beyond all their dreams The pebbles of the walk skittered underfoot and even outside his steps, scuttling to be out of his way. As it should be.

No other fifteen-year-old had had to prove that he had the right to study for NEWTs. The Ministry would not pay for higher schooling for imbeciles, so he had proven he was not one. Slaved in secret on three projects to find one that would suffice, would hold his spot, stake his claim forever on a place in the wizarding world. Two of those plans had backfired together - his exploration of a long-lost chamber caused the murder that turned his Nostalgia Diary into a Horcrux. ‘Dark’ magic, and worse, it had already been done. But he pushed his way through, skated in on the hourglass toy he had made to give himself more time, the one piece that he had never meant to present.

Of course they would never award him accolades, not even when he found out that inventing new magics was not a schoolboy trick. They were reluctant even to graduate him, and he had walked this path afterwards with nothing, empty-handed, no connections, not a Knut to his name, _nothing_ to take out into the world that he had not made himself.

A flower shriveled at his approach.

He should never have come back here. He should never have given him the honor of his application. He could see now what dust his lofty dreams had been, thinking to reclaim the knowledge he had gained in the east, unsully the name of dark magic and lead generations of students into the glory of truth. No, those were shining lies, and the truth -

The truth -

The truth was all that raw anger they had coached him to ignore. What hormones! What psychoses! In his fury he had touched truths they had never dreamed of, at eleven, thinking they might reject him. At thirteen, at the purebloods who shunned him until he changed his name. At fifteen, at their whole corrupted world. He had been right. And now, he would burn it down around their ears.

They loved power? He would give them power, feed them on it until they bloated and worshipped him like geese fattened for foie gras. They loved blood purity? He would strangle them with it until all their families would fit in a curragh. They had no time for penniless orphans? Well - he had given them time. He would take it now. He could see now how all his journeypiece projects had sought time, sought immortality. He could take eternity, just to watch them burn.

The gates flew open before him without a touch. And they called involuntary magic childishness. He threw those doors shut again behind him.

The gates of Hogwarts were closed to him.

The world awaited.

_Our mother has been absent ever since we founded Rome_

_But there's going to be a party when the wolf comes home._


End file.
